Limestone football recruit knows a lot about overcoming adversity

Sunday

Jun 16, 2013 at 4:22 PM

Jesse Olsen will try to convince you that he's a normal teen -- that he's nothing special.

By Drew Brooksdrew.brooks@shj.com

Jesse Olsen will try to convince you that he's a normal teen - that he's nothing special.The 18-year-old from Altamonte Springs, Fla. was co-captain of his high school football team and a key member of the weightlifting team. He's an Eagle Scout and was a member of his school's homecoming court and a photographer for the school paper.But that's not what sets Olsen, who will be a freshman at Limestone College this fall, apart from his fellow students.In just a few short years, Olsen took control of his health by losing more than 100 pounds, watched his mom battle cancer while in a three-month-long coma and then lost his home when the family was evicted.His battles with obesity and homelessness and his mother's successful struggle against cancer have molded Olsen into a young man Limestone College officials think can be a leader both on and off the field.He's a hard worker with good character and a lot of potential. More importantly, he's a great kid, said Craig Kerr, Limestone's offensive coordinator.“It's a heart-wrenching story. It's an interesting story,” said Kerr, who helped recruit Olsen to be a part of the school's first football team. “It shows his drive. It shows he knows how to fight.”Olsen, for his part, seems taken-back by the notion that his story could serve as an inspiration for others.“It was tough,” he said. “But whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”By that measure, Olsen is plenty strong.

As a freshman at Lake Brantley High School near Orlando, Fla., Olsen weighed in at nearly 380 pounds.His weight was a health concern and made him an object of ridicule for some, but Olsen didn't let the teasing get to him.He was told he would need to lose at least 80 pounds to play football, a sport Olsen knew little about playing but was drawn to nonetheless.“I had never played,” he said. “I wasn't mobile at all. But I knew I had to lose weight.”Olsen, whose current 6-foot-5, 290-pound frame is mostly muscle, looks back on the weight loss as a challenge, but by no means was it his biggest hurdle of the school year.At the end of Olsen's freshman year, he watched as his mother, Debra, a single mother of three, was put in a medically induced coma while she battled cancer in her blood platelets.It's a battle she eventually won — the family learned earlier this year that her cancer is in remission. But the battle had collateral damage.Financially strained during the years of treatment, Olsen said his family was evicted from the home he had lived in his entire life in February of this year.Since then, Olsen has lived on the generosity of others, sleeping on the floors of friends and family.Those were his living arrangements when Olsen, standing outside his high school, gave directions to a pair of men who traveled from Gaffney to speak with his coach.

Head football coach Bobby James and Kerr were at Lake Brantley High for a recruiting fair, Kerr said, when they stopped a large man in the parking lot.That “man” was Olsen, whose large stature had Kerr and James optimistic about the talent they would see.Olsen showed the pair where to park, and then escorted them to the gym, Kerr said.There, Olsen's coach had nothing but glowing reviews for his young offensive guard and filled the Limestone men in on Olsen's unique story.“We saw a lot of potential,” Kerr said. “His story will have an impact and an influence on other players.”James said Olsen's character is one of his greatest assets and said the young man has lived up to all of the praise heaped on him.“What he's done. Just to graduate … He's the type of young man we'd love to have,” James said.With a young program — the Limestone Saints won't play their first game until fall of 2014 — character is an important trait to recruit.“They're going to basically be the seniors every year,” Kerr said. “It's up to them to set records and write the history books. We only get one chance to do this right and we're setting the bar high.”That maturity was evident when Olsen visited the school with his mother in March.

Unlike many other young men, Olsen held open doors and spoke with respect.“He did all the little things,” James said. “You could tell, there's something special there.”“(Olsen's mother) is an unbelievable person,” he added. “And her son is her pride and joy.”James said Olsen, and three other incoming players with “parallel” stories, bring maturity most freshmen simply don't have.He said those stories might shock his team at first, but he is confident they will make the team better.“Everybody complains about something,” James said, “but having a peer that has been through that — they should be happy that at least they have a bed to sleep on.”The bed, and his dorm room, are two of the things Olsen is looking forward to at Limestone.He chose the school over a Pennsylvania college because of the coaches and the ease with which family, including a brother in Asheville, N.C., can visit.“My mom is ecstatic about it to say the least,” Olsen said.When asked how he dealt with adversity over and over, Olsen said that early in his freshman year, he was urged to look up motivational quotes on a regular basis.

One of those quotes, by baseball player and coach Tommy Lasorda, became a personal mantra for Olsen, who pasted it over his bed, in his school locker and in his football locker.“‘The only difference between the possible and the impossible lives in the person's determination,'” Olsen said. “I just kept it in my mind at all times.”Olsen is optimistic about his future. Like any football player, he said, he dreams of playing professionally.But he said he'd be more than satisfied working as a strength trainer and that's the degree he'll pursue at Limestone.James is convinced Olsen will be a success in life. It's now his job to help steer Olsen to success on the football field, too.“A lot of people are going to be talking about him,” he said. “The sky is the limit for him. He's going to get better and better and better every year.”Olsen is a central piece in what James and Kerr are building at Limestone. It's not just a football team, the men said. It's a family.“He can only strengthen the whole,” James said.

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